National Performance Network provides support for established and emerging artists in the performing and visual arts.

NPN provides funding directly to the NPN/VAN Partners (members) through its subsidy programs.

NPN brings people together at the Annual Meeting and Mid-Year Meetings.

NPN takes part in the conversation representing its segment of the contemporary arts field.

Subsidy Programs
As an artist-centered network, NPN is deliberate in crafting its programs to reflect basic principles of equitable standards for artists while creating and touring their work. NPN has established a distinct yet inter-related cluster of Subsidy Programs that both reflect its mission and add value to the ongoing work of presenter, artist, audience, and community constituencies. The major programs include:

Performance Residency Program: provides subsidies to NPN Partners to present performing artists from other communities within the United States for one- or two-week stays. Artists presented under the NPN Performance Residency model are required to work under the NPN standard contract and fee structure.

VAN Exhibition Residency Program: provides subsidies to VAN Partners to exhibit and host visual artists from other communities within the United States for one- or two-week stays. Artists exhibited under the VAN Exhibition Residency model are required to work under the VAN standard contract and fee structure.

Creation Fund: provides commissioning support to local or out-of-town artists toward the creation of new work. The Forth Fund provides additional resources to the new work.

Community Fund: enhances the connections between an NPN Partner’s local community and the national artists participating in Performance Residency or Creation Fund programs.

LANE: in partnership with the Nonprofit Finance Fund, is a years-long initiative to move talk about cultural equity into action by providing training and resources to NPN/VAN Partners.

The National Performance Network (NPN) is a group of diverse cultural organizers, including artists, working to create meaningful partnerships and to provide leadership that enables the practice and public experience of the performing arts in the United States.

Patterned after NPN's model performing arts program, the Visual Artists Network was launched in 2007 as a pilot, and in 2009 the program was formally established through the induction of the VAN Partners, fifteen leading contemporary arts organizations from across the United States.

The boundaries between the performing and visual arts are more than blurred: "Performance art" on the stage and "installations" in a gallery. Using the residency model of a touring performing artist, VAN is a way for the visual artist to engage in community.